At the Feet of Abraham: A Day-to-Day Dialogic Praxis for Muslims and Christians

By Levi UC Nkwocha and Peter J. Casarella

This book advances an Abrahamic "asymmetric-mutual-substitutive" model of hospitality as a practical approach to establish peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians. The merits include its helpful survey of the four models of interfaith dialogue and its clear exposition of the dialogue of life; its constructive use of the philosophy of Levinas, particularly in supporting its vision of asymmetrical moral responsibility among Muslim and Christians; and its familiarity with an extensive philosophical literature on alterity, gift-exchange, and responsibility. The research also demonstrates strong command of the relevant Christian and Muslim scriptures and Catholic teaching on interfaith relations, in addition to a wide range of background material on African Ubuntu spirit, visible in Nigerian sociocultural and religious interdependent relations. Through a consistent engagement of these philosophical, ethical, and cultural dimensions, the Abrahamic theology of hospitality is ingeniously crafted to fill the age-old gap--mutual inability to deal with religious otherness. At once, the book provokes further scholarship inquiries on and around the identified concerns. Its commonness and concreteness, with the proposed respect for each other's faith commitment, further underscores its quality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725276932

Levi UC Nkwocha

Levi UC Nkwocha is a trained priest-theologian and a pan-Africanist, originally from Nigeria. He earned a master's degree in Systematic Theology, and a PhD in World Religions, World Church, at the prestigious University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. Currently, he teaches at the University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, Indiana. His scholarship research includes topical issues in Interfaith Dialogue, African/Black Theology, Catholicism, and Global Christianity. He has published many referred articles and book chapters. At the Feet of Abraham: A Day-to-Day Dialogic praxis for Muslims and Christians is his novel work.

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At the Feet of Abraham

A Day-to-Day Dialogic Praxis for Muslims and Christians

Levi UC Nkwocha

Foreword by Peter J. Casarella

At the Feet of Abraham

A Day-to-Day Dialogic Praxis for Muslims and Christians

Copyright © 2020 Levi UC Nkwocha. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-7692-5

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Manufactured in the U.S.A. 12/01/20

To my inspirational dad,

Pa Alphonsus N. Nkwocha, JP (1929–2016)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Problem

Chapter 2: Mismanaged Problem

Chapter 3: Contextual Rivalry

Chapter 4: Inadequate Reactions to Religious Otherness

Chapter 5: The Development of Positive Views

Chapter 6: Dialogue of Life as Faith Witnessing

Chapter 7: The Hospitality Key

Chapter 8: Hospitality and the African Communality

Chapter 9: Hospitable Coexistence

Chapter 10: Hospitality

Chapter 11: The Abrahamic Model

Conclusion

Bibliography

Foreword

It is both a pleasure and privilege to write the foreword to At the Feet of Abraham. This is a significant work in systematic theology, for the book both broadens and deepens our current view of the practice of dialogue. But my immediate praise for the work’s merits is also tinted by personal memories of dialogue. For example, I have a distinct recollection of the day that Dr. Levi UC Nkwocha served as a substitute in my undergraduate class at Notre Dame on God and Dialogue. I had to give a talk at an international conference, and Nkwocha had prepared two lectures on the ethics of hospitality according to Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur. He was very well prepared academically for the lecture, but I was much less prepared when I returned to evaluate the videotape. His lecture added a dimension I had not anticipated. Only with retrospect was I able to make sense out of my initial shortsightedness. Since his main topic was the openness to hospitality, he began the first lecture by explaining to the awe-struck nineteen-year-olds the symbolism of the kola nut ritual.

The kola nut is a special nut (with multiple lobes) of the kola tree, which is found in the rainforests of Nigeria. The lobes range from two to eight. It has ample medicinal and dynamic benefits, but Nkwocha focused on its use in a symbolized act of welcome to a known guest or stranger, mostly ritualized among the Igbos (in the southeastern region). The welcome ritual has multiple connotations. Usually, the host presents the kola nut to all present, including the stranger, then has it blessed, broken, and shared. Because of its symbolic emphasis on communitarian spirit, a kola nut without lobe is considered abnormal, and so cannot be presented to guests. While the multiple lobes are communally shared and eaten, a fruitful bond is initiated with the guest. The guest is also invited to take one kola nut home and extend the gesture of hospitality received.

No seminar on pedagogy for the twenty-first century could have imparted this lesson plan. My students retained the story until the end of the semester. The kola nut was the perfect prelude to a discussion of Levinas and Ricoeur! No assiduous study on my part could have made this lesson as memorable as Nkwocha’s voice from the global South.

It is with similar delight and wonder that I offer a few prefatory remarks to this work. At the Feet of Abraham is unusually praiseworthy in its scope and originality. The work is remarkable for the synthesis of three elements: a phenomenological ethics and Levinasian approach to radical hospitality, the Catholic understanding of dialogue of life as a form of interreligious encounter, and the particular promises, ruptures, and exigencies of a peaceful social life in a pluralistic Nigeria today. Combining any two of these three elements would have already qualified as a tremendous achievement in many first works by young scholars.

This book excels precisely because of the equal weight placed upon each of the feet of this tripod. As such, the illuminating engagements from Levinas shine through in the sections on Catholic theology and vice versa. Problems would arise, I think, if one of these three modes of discourse were too dominant. Although the question of how to relate philosophy to theology in an intercultural context was not the direct focus of this investigation, I think that there are genuine strides made on this level as well. One might ask whether this work belongs to philosophical ethics or systematic theology, but I do not think that one must necessarily choose one or the other. In general, I was impressed by the circularity of the relationship between philosophy and theology. In this case, circularity is not an abstraction (the vicious circle of the philosophers) but a lived and engaged circularity. Maintaining an equilibrium between these two distinct modes of inquiry seemed prudent as well as generative of a genuinely synthetic set of new insights.

At the Feet of Abraham provides much needed clarity on the notion of the dialogue of life and its relationship to an ethics of hospitality. The very notion of a dialogue of life has been endorsed not only by the Catholic Church but through diverse academic studies. Life is not pursued in opposition to the other major forms of dialogue: theology, religious experience, and action. It complements these still vital tasks. Life is the field in which both human happiness and tribal violence take root. We know from too many historical examples how fraught the reality of life can be. Pope Francis, a strong proponent of the model of the dialogue of life, also writes: Time is greater than space.¹ Dialogue accordingly cannot just focus on an agreement on ideas and plans. The end result must also include a meaningful form of existence that is sustainable over time and that offers generative life to two parties that formerly were in conflict.

The dialogue of life is hence more about people-building than the possessive occupying of territory with expensive edifices for conducting one’s own business. To interrogate the conditions for dialogue beyond (but not without) doctrine, prayer, and social action sheds light on the very conditions that will lead to a sustainable peace for Africa and other regions of the world as well. The focus on African projects like the dialogical efforts of Cardinal Nzapalainga in the Central African Republic (CAR) was thus not only appropriate but necessary in this context. This moving example also underscores the element of the witnessing of faith in the hospitality model.

In general, this work represents one of the most sophisticated approaches to the ethics and theology of hospitality that I have ever read. Many sources are engaged by Nkwocha, but the position he articulates is in the end distinctively his own. He prudently restricts his borrowing from John Milbank of the terminology of asymmetric reciprocity since this position is still inadequately intercultural. Here he draws instead and with equal judiciousness upon Michael Purcell, Catherine Cornille, and the late Jean Vanier. The vast erudition raises other interesting questions.

The first one that came to my mind has to do with the theology of life. This is a major theme in both Levinas and in the Gospel of John. Nkwocha approaches the former in terms of an Abrahamic exodus from home and the model of Jesus as a pilgrim. He approaches the latter in terms of a detailed and convincing analysis of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Although the encounter is in many ways an odd one, it is still an extension of an ethics of radical hospitality already present in the Hebrew Bible. It then becomes determinative in Nkwocha’s religious ethics. Through their encounter, both Jesus and the woman retained their otherness but still experienced growth. Such asymmetrical but mutual hospitality is paradigmatic for the form of total hospitality that Nkwocha is proposing.

This work makes a unique contribution to the very notion of alterity. The assimilation of Levinasian hospitality with the ethics of hospitality defined more immanently by Jacques Derrida, especially in Derrida’s difficult text Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, does not follow the usual course that one encounters in Euroamerican discourse. Nkwocha notes that their positions cannot be assimilated to one another. Theologically both French thinkers move beyond Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics, but religiously they make this move in radically different ways. They nonetheless both defend an absolute hospitality that disregards the consequences to one’s own self. Richard Kearney, as Nkwocha notes, is right to denominate this form of hospitality as hyperbolic.² The fear of sharing a space with a total stranger can be real and terrifying. The risk of hospitality cannot be overcome by the modern Western notion of justice as fairness. Hospitality cannot be homogenized. Its universality is unmistakable but is exercised responsibly with respect to one’s own location.

Instead of the Western notion of Rawlsian liberalism, we are introduced to a distinctively African and Christian way of sharing one’s home. Levinas’s faith in an infinite God that mirrors our own fear of and responsibility to the other is finally more persuasive than Derrida’s theology of justice. For example, Nkwocha writes: Levinas’s ‘self-recollection at home, parallel to Panikkar’s intra-religious dialogue, prods the host into absolute service to the other, to an extent of being a hostage."³ One must be confident of the traditions of hospitality one has received from one’s ancestors in order to take such a great risk of offering hyperbolic hospitality. The Western Christian with his colonializing tendencies is seldom able to make this leap of faith. Nkwocha consequently finds his own way home in the process of negotiating the subtle ethical and religious difference between the two French thinkers. The result of this incisive interchange is an obvious enrichment of global Catholic theology and the forging of a new path for the people of Nigeria.

A final point thus has to do with African hospitality, a polysemic term that is examined in great depth and variety, especially with regard to the ubuntu and the Yoruba traditions. The former undergirds the evolving human reality of being-with-others. Our personhood develops in communion with other persons. The sharing of food, as in the New Testament, is a mere cipher for a spontaneous ethical act of welcoming the stranger. In Yorubaland, the ideas of common ancestry and respect for the elders as well as the concrete practice of housewarming can be interpreted as a way to promote tolerance in a pluralist setting and even in areas like Northern Nigeria, where conflicts between Muslims and Christians have flared.

The convergence between the Levinasian home (as a locus for a new source of religious ethics) and the African home represents one of the great illuminations of this work as a whole. It is nonetheless the model of the pilgrim who is faithful to his religious and cultural roots rather than the territorial hoarder of a land that guides us through this thicket. The distinction between pilgrim and tourist is critical in this work and frankly in all work that broaches the tense topic of global religion. The tourist demands a fair and equitably compensated transaction. The tourist’s voyage is either prepaid or based upon the calculus of a budget. The pilgrim depends upon the surprising respect of others and can respond in turn by welcoming with generosity. The budget for this act comes from beyond the meager means of the purely self-reflexive self.

In sum, At the Feet of Abraham is a remarkable work. Dr. Nkwocha has illuminated the Abrahamic bond that links Christians and Muslims (and not forgetting Abraham’s role in establishing God’s covenant with Israel). But the vision of an Abrahamic religion presented here is not the bland settlement for a lowest common denominator. The true bond, Nkwocha demonstrates, opens up an eschatological horizon in which Christians and Muslims can see one another together as God’s children, a gaze that, as Br. Christian de Chergé assayed, can only be reflected in the face of the Father of Abraham. The model of pilgrimage thus points to a common practice and a common path to self-discovery.⁴ The Muslim practice and the Christian practice of pilgrimage are distinct religious practices with distinct configurations of meaning that still maintain overlapping points of reference (e.g., the old city of Jerusalem). But in both cases a wanderer stands in need of an ethics of hospitality in the present and a future home in the house of the God of Abraham. This work enables us to reflect in a comparative and intercultural manner on the bridge God builds to connect the diverse pilgrims in the present with an eschatological future.

We live in a time in which the permits—legal, cultural, and spiritual—to build such bridges are needed more than ever. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, global governments have responded with new security measures. In itself, the defense of a border against the attack made against innocents is just. But we have also witnessed the exceptional maltreatment of the stranger as a means for the enforcement of the power of the state. The exception is now the norm. With the advent of COVID-19, new measures like the suspension of all green cards in the United States have augmented the reach and dominion of this state of exception. The insights in this work regarding hospitality are not being heeded by our leaders. Listening to the other and offering a home is now more than ever a matter that impacts global politics. Consequently, I thank God for the gift of At the Feet of Abraham and commend it to your reading and reflection. This is a book that speaks to some of the deepest needs that the people who share a faith in the God of Abraham are facing today.

Peter J. Casarella

Professor

The Divinity School at Duke University

Preface

This book research advances an Abrahamic asymmetric-mutual substitutive model of hospitality in order to guide interfaith relations between Muslims and Christians, particularly in the Nigerian context. Responding to Pope Francis’s urgent call for a dialogue of life that seeks to complement other familiar forms of dialogue, such as theological discourse, religious experience, and action, this book sees holistic, everyday expressions of altruistic hospitality as key to overcoming legacies of hostility and suspicion among Christians and Muslims.

As an interdisciplinary discourse, this book systematizes Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical hospitality and its African perspective into an Abrahamic interfaith dialogical pattern. Even though Levinas proposes substitutive responsibility from an ethico-philosophical view, it is the claim of this book that a healthy theology can be constructed from its principles by stimulating asymmetric-mutual substitutive responsibility among Muslims and Christians. Such transition validates a scholastic maxim: philosophy is the handmaid of theology.

The merits of the work include its helpful survey of the four models of interfaith dialogue and its clear exposition of the dialogue of life; its constructive use of the philosophy of Levinas, particularly in supporting its vision of asymmetrical moral responsibility; and its familiarity with an extensive philosophical literature on alterity, gift-= exchange, and responsibility (Derrida, Ricoeur, Volf, and others). The book also demonstrates strong command of the relevant Christian and Muslim scriptures and Catholic teaching on interfaith relations, in addition to a wide range of background material on the African ubuntu spirit, visible in Nigerian sociocultural and religious interdependent relations.

Through a consistent engagement of these philosophical, ethical, and cultural dimensions, the Abrahamic theology of hospitality is ingeniously crafted to fill the age-old gap—mutual inability to deal with religious otherness. At once, the book provokes further scholarship inquiries on and around the identified concerns. Its commonness and concreteness, with the proposed respect for each other’s faith commitment, further underscores its quality.

The eleven-chapters structure articulates: stating the problem, identifying previous inadequate responses, and establishing the contribution of the book. In establishing the problem that this book intends to address, the first chapter critically explores a broad review of the age-old Christian-Muslim mutual antagonistic perceptions, which have led to incessant violent attacks and deaths. Reviewing the ambivalence of both scriptures concerning other religions, this chapter argues against religious otherness as the problem, but strongly blames the problem on the mutual inability to handle faith divergences. Consequently, the internal exclusive perceptions rapidly erupted into violent space contests. The first two chapters aim to provide historical background on the origins and development of Christian/Muslim unpleasant relations.

The second chapter builds off from the inherent problem identified in the previous chapter and highlights the grave consequences of botching religious otherness. It demonstrates the dangers of supersessionist proselytization. It also argues that the major Muslim-Christian problem lies in the inability to accept each other’s faith on their own terms. As a result, mutual distorted perceptions from the past to the present caused great harms to both sides. In fact, the largest human and material losses in the history of religious conflicts owe a lot to the ideology of killing and looting in the name of God.

From a global perception of the problem, chapter 3 turns more specifically to the state of these biased relations in Nigeria. It exposes an ongoing Muslim-Christian antagonism and rivalry in a contemporary society. Such religious colored unrest and supremacy tussle, in which over 187 million lives are at stake, validate the urgency of the concern of this book.

After a complete exposition of the distorted perceptions towards each religion and the prolonged consequential impacts of rivalry, wars, and inherent suspicions between Muslims and Christians, chapter 4 introduces a phase of efforts made to bridge the noticed gap. First, it appreciates available individual views in search of workable solutions, but also uncovers their limitations. This fourth chapter sketches various theories of interfaith engagement (inclusivism, pluralism, etc.), followed by two other chapters that present the dialogue of life as an unexplored alternative.

Similarly, chapter 5 leads a turn to dialogue, which challenges this book into searching out possible development of positive views in both Islamic and Christian traditions. The search seeks contributions that likely informed the dialogic approach, upon which the hospitality approach, as a way forward, can be constructed. Besides identifying germane pioneering intuitions viable for dialogic engagements, this chapter also explored the rich but bold extension of a hand of friendship from the Vatican to the Islamic world. Within this friendship initiative are the four forms of dialogue defined, including the unexplored dialogue of life.

As a major approach for this book research, and prior to the establishment of the hospitality model, chapter 6 provides a necessary transition or connection between practical dialogue and hospitality. The chapter accentuates the essence of space creation and sharing as basis for the possibility of dialogic hospitality.

With a well-set background on dialogue of life, chapter 7 investigates, but also appreciates, the enduring hospitality values from the philosophical and ethical perspectives, especially the Levinasian thoughts, which are relevant for the substitutive altruistic formulation. The chapter concludes with identifying the limits of ethical and philosophical views of hospitality. Chapters 7 and 8 situate hospitality as central to the dialogue of life, drawing upon the philosophy of Levinas and African notions of ubuntu.

From an African cultural perspective, chapter 8 proposes additional workable practice toward the coexistence of Muslims and Christians through the introduction of the ubuntu spirit. The African ubuntu metaphor emphasizes the relational responsibility that exists between persons and other persons, and with the entire community. This chapter, while appreciating ubuntu’s inter human dependence, aligns its cultural values to the hospitality model in focus.

Chapter 9 returns to the context of Nigeria and offers the Yoruba people (of the southwestern region) as a template of Muslim-Christian dialogic hospitality. It situates the interdependent elements of African ubuntu in a Yoruba context, and carefully gleans out the inherent substitutive altruism that pervades the Muslim-Christian relations there. This chapter argues that if common ancestry could substantiate the Yorubaness over and above political and religious differences, then the Abrahamic ancestry claim for both Muslims and Christians could also provide healthier understanding and coexistence.

Chapter 10 introduces a theological transition that carefully articulated the Levinasian idea of substitutive hospitality as well as the African ubuntu spirit, but creatively remodels their principles into an Abrahamic theology of asymmetric-mutual responsibility. This tenth chapter and the last attempt to render more explicit the theological resources within Christianity and Islam that can motivate and expand the proposed model of interfaith hospitality.

Chapter 11 is critically shown as ethically and theologically substitutive via hospitality, because Abraham freely embarked on his covenantal journey in order to be available for the services of the divine Other through the human others. Understood as such, the Abrahamic substitutive theology is therefore argued as great inspiration for Muslims and Christians to live for and with each other. The book closes by evoking the scriptural scene of Abrahamic hospitality at the Oak of Mamre as a unifying image of interfaith relations going forward.

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge the immense largesse of God available to me. My appreciation goes to my archbishop, Most Rev. Dr. Anthony Obinna, the Metopolitan of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri, Nigeria. In particular, I am indebted to the gifts of my family, friends, and mentors. I owe a lot to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, my alma mater, whose prestigious home for holistic growth informed the development of this book project. I would also like to thank my academic advisor, Dr. Bradley Malkovsky, and Dr. Peter Casarella, who graciously wrote the foreword, for their collaborative guidance and interest toward my academic growth. Equal gratitude goes to my other committee members for their inspiring feedback.

Specifically, I remain grateful to my friends Scott and Kim Welch for their financial support in the accomplishment of this book project. Finally, I thank all: the faculty, the staff, and the students of my Notre Dame family, who contributed to the timely completion of this book research.

Abbreviations

AIC African Independent Church

BICMURA Bulletin on Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa

BYM Borno Youth Movement

CAN Christian Association of Nigeria

CAR Central African Republic

CBCN Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria

CSN Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria

DM Dialogue and Mission (full title: The Attitude of the Church Toward Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission)

DP Dialogue and Proclamation

DPNC Democratic Party of Nigeria and Cameroon

FCS Fellowship of Christian Students

IFMC Inter Faith Mediation Center

ITU Igbira Tribal Union

IU Igala Union

JNI Jamalat-ul-Nasril Islam

LRA Lord’s Resistance Army

MDF Midwest Democratic Front

NA Nostra Aetate

NCNC National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon

NIREC Nigerian Interreligious Council

NSCIA Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs

NYSC National Youth Service Corps

OIC Organization of Islamic Conference

PCID Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue

1

. Pope Francis, Joy of the Gospel,

222–25

.

2

. Kearney, Strangers,

243

.

3

. Nkwocha, At the Feet of Abraham, citing Levinas, Totality and Infinity,

38

.

4

. On the contemporary meaning of how pilgrimage provokes self-discovery among young people today, see Jason, Deliberate Walk.

Introduction

I

As the global consciousness for a pluralistic society continues emerging, the responsibility of engaging diversities, especially the religious other, increases. Islam and Christianity, being the world’s most growing and populous religions, exert great decisive impact on world peace. Unfortunately, the relationship between the two religions throughout history has been charged with rivalry, leading to mutual violence. Consequently, mutual antagonisms and suspicious isolations describe their relations. Recently than ever, scholars from both religions are striving towards establishing a healthier dialogic relationship that can sustain peaceful coexistence.

This book aims at addressing the said concern. It is the principal position of the book to argue that mutual substitutive hospitality between Muslims and Christians at the base level, especially in Nigeria, will diminish the age-old antagonism and suspicious isolation. Equally, such warm praxis will generate growth through improved openness for the respect of each other’s otherness, while it deepens particular faith commitments. In essence, the book will establish that mutual substitutive hospitality, without the intent of reciprocity, provides sustainable locus for dialogue of life between these two religious rivals.

Specifically, the state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, where the populations of both groups are roughly equal, presents a microcosm of Christian-Muslim conflict in the world today. Nonetheless, Yorubaland (southwestern region) offers a superb testing ground for how interreligious hospitality and peaceful coexistence can be fostered. Yorubaland, with equal percentage of Muslims and Christians, radically disapproves the broader conclusion that an even split between the predominantly Muslim North and the Christian South is the root cause for the known religious tensions and rivalry in Nigeria. Actually, the healthy coexistence in the Yoruba context, ingrained in mutual substitutive hospitality, succinctly speaks to other Muslims and Christians in the world on three counts: 1) for a deeper understanding of Abrahamic hospitality; 2) for teaching of both traditional hospitality and mutual existence; 3) for translating scriptural altruistic doctrines into effective theological praxis.

The scholarly significance of this book transits from a particular context to its universal applicability. As an interdisciplinary discourse, this book systematizes Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical hospitality and its African perspective into an Abrahamic interfaith dialogic pattern. Levinasian altruism has provoked several scholarly discussions in both philosophical and ethical perceptions, but never as a tool for interfaith dialogue. Similarly, hospitality has been presented as a model for missions and for intermonastic spiritual exchanges. None, however, has considered Abrahamic hospitality as key for Muslim-Christian dialogue of life. Moreover, dialogue through hospitality, fairly present in both Muslim and Christian traditions, lacks a theological systematization of its principles for interfaith purposes. This book fills in that theological gap.

Even though Levinas proposes substitutive responsibility from an ethico-philosophical view, it is the argument of this book that a healthy theology can be constructed from its principles by stimulating asymmetric-mutual substitutive responsibility among Muslims and Christians. Such transition reassures one of the scholastic maxims that philosophia ancillia theologia—philosophy is the handmaid of theology.

Following Pope Francis’s recent call for dialogue of life¹ in ecumenical and interfaith interactions, the future of this research is assured. Francis’s directives for theologians to explore the dynamics of dialogue of life, beyond the theoretical discourses, will not only motivate the engagement of this work, but will also open up further scholarship inquiries on and around this topic. Above all, the creatively theological systematization of hospitality through the consistent engagement of its philosophical and cultural dimensions within a dialogue of life strengthens the captivating newness of this work.

As the major approach, dialogue of life is one of the four forms of dialogue (others include: dialogue of action, dialogue of spiritual experience, and dialogue of theological discourse) defined by the 1984 document (Dialogue and Mission) of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and reiterated by another in 1991 (Dialogue and Proclamation). Dialogue of life represents a spontaneous, daily, practical approach of interfaith witnessing toward the distinct but inseparable love of God and neighbors. Obviously, it is not a replacement, but a complementary application of the ongoing theological discourses. Regrettably, dialogue of life is the most understudied among the four forms.

The book, therefore, advocates for a turn towards millions of ordinary Christians and Muslims, who constitute the highest percentage of endangered species (both victims and machineries) in every religious crisis. By so doing, it will demonstrate that despite the several violent interreligious crises between Muslims and Christians, there are still millions of adherents of these two religions who manifest practices related to dialogue of life, daily. The research further aims at learning from their much-understudied elements of dialogue of life, but also seeks to articulate them into a theology of hospitality, for the sustenance of peaceful coexistence. The primary goal of the book is to harness those useful ingredients of dialogue of life, in view of complementing other ongoing forms of dialogue in the academy, among spiritual experiential experts, and among pluralistic societies facing sociopolitical and religious crises.

The radical asymmetric altruism of Emmanuel Levinas, in which the face of the other demands a non-reciprocal sacrificial responsibility from the self, is partially adopted for the achievement of a healthy dialogue of life between Christians and Muslims. This book appropriates Levinas’s radical substitutive responsibility toward the other, without its asymmetric restriction. The reason being that interreligious dialogue, in the form of a remolded theological hospitality pattern (Abrahamic pilgrim model), has mutuality as a principal element. Moreover, mutual hospitality is a common practice in both Islamic and Christian theological teachings. This is true because while the Qur’an (5:48) and the Bible (Luke 6:27–28) command their respective believers to lavishly engage in altruistic works, never do they condemn mutuality of good deeds, even as they expect rewards from God alone.

The impact of this book, besides arousing the eagerness of interfaith theologians, will enthrall the interests of scholars in humanities, social scientists, fieldwork researchers, ardent spiritual leaders, but also committed religious adherents, whose daily life experiences are in focus. Its emphasis on the practical approach across religious borders also provides a testing ground for the ongoing dialogic discourses.

The practical richness of this book provides a resource base for an undergraduate’s fundamental course in interfaith dialogue with concentration on Muslim-Christian relations. It can as well form part of a graduate course requirement for a Vatican II-based Catholicism in conversation with non-Christian faiths. In addition, this book can be recommended for a scripture course on Abrahamic faith, and a philosophical ethics class on Emmanuel Levinas. Moreover, its cultural aspect will offer significant knowledge for a course on theopolitical African studies.

Broadly speaking, the major problem of Muslim-Christian relation is typically identified as the persistent inability to manage religious otherness by harmonizing it with communion. Such a problem, therefore, calls for mutual substitutive responsibility as hyped by dialogue of life via Abrahamic hospitality. Fittingly, this book aims at addressing the identified interfaith relational gap.

Subsequently, the hospitality key demonstrates the possibility of the intended harmony between otherness and communion. Jayme Reaves’s three distinctions of hospitality, namely, table fellowship, the intellectual, and the protective, underscore the fact that the need of the other, while demanding positive responses, sets the agenda. As a rule, the need of the other should be responded to, without absorbing the otherness of her personality. Such renewed ethical standard agrees with Levinasian altruism as well as the African communitarian responsibility, beautifully couched in the "ubuntu spirit"² metaphor.

With the traditional significances of hospitality properly explored, the book plunges deeper and unveils the centrality of the theological praxis of hospitality, clearly mandated in both Islamic and Christian scriptures, as inevitable eschatological conditions. These distinct but related theological mandates are articulated here as the theology of Abrahamic substitutive hospitality.

Substitutive responsibility expresses the mutual exchange of disparate gifts, thereby excluding indebtedness. By assuring otherness through resisting assimilation, the Abrahamic hospitality allows the gift of newness from the other to activate the process of correcting distorted perceptions. Abrahamic ethical substitution, as explored, models an equilibrium concerning the love of God and love of neighbor mandate. Therefore, his substitutive theology can inspire Muslims and Christians into coexistent living. As a preferred model, Abrahamic altruism was always done for the sake of God.³

Accordingly, Muslims and Christians are called to treat the other, not necessarily as bad as the other deserves, but rather as good as each adherent is, since a true theistic religion is defined by its evidential ability of achieving healthy relations between the love of God and the love of neighbor.

In order to attain its goal, this book sets out to awaken mutual hospitable awareness among Muslims and Christians through its eleven chapters. Chapter 1, The Problem: Religious Otherness?, attempts a general review of the age-old Christian-Muslim mutual antagonistic perceptions. The evaluation extends to chapter 2, Mismanaged Problem: Mutual Blame, which highlights the grave consequences of botching religious otherness. Chapter 3, Contextual Rivalry: The Nigerian Experience, exposes an ongoing Muslim-Christian antagonism in a contemporary society, thereby advocating the urgency of this book. The review narrows down to chapter 4, Inadequate Reactions to Religious Otherness, which appreciates available views on solutions, but concludes with exposing their limitations.

Then, chapter 5, The Development of Positive Views, leads a turn which challenges this book into searching out possible dialogic contributions in both Islamic and Christian traditions, presumably preparatory for the hospitality approach, as a way forward. Prior to developing the hospitality model, chapter 6, Dialogue of Life as Faith Witnessing, provides a necessary transition or connection between practical dialogue and hospitality. This chapter accentuates the essence of space creation and sharing as basis for the possibility of dialogic hospitality.

With the background well set, chapter 7, The Hospitality Key, explores and appreciates the enduring hospitality values from philosophical and ethical perspectives, especially the Levinasian thoughts driving the substitutive altruistic formulation. And from a cultural perspective, chapter 8, Hospitality and African Communality, presents additional workable practice toward the coexistence of Muslims and Christians by substantiating the substitutive altruism through the Yoruba Example in chapter 9.

Chapters 10, Hospitality a Theological Dimension, introduces a theological transition that carefully articulates the Levinasian idea of substitutive hospitality as well as the African ubuntu spirit, and creatively remodeled their principles into an Abrahamic theology of asymmetric-mutual responsibility.

Finally, in chapter 11, The Abrahamic Model is critically shown as ethically and theologically substitutive via hospitality. Inductively, the Abrahamic substitutive theology is therefore presented as that priceless stimulus for Muslims and Christians to live for and with each other.

As an interfaith proposal, this book does not claim to have the last word on Muslim-Christian dialogic hospitality relation. The envisaged fruits of this book research notwithstanding, its concrete applications might remain challenging, especially due to the informality that governs dialogue of life. However, the encouragement for the pursuance of this book’s thesis lies in the strength of its commonness and concreteness, without necessarily involving doctrinal polemics and proselytization for conversion, known to provoke rudeness toward otherness.

II

Understanding otherness is fundamental at this point. The existential, social, and spiritual challenge of the otherness of the human person, unlike the encounter with other realities, is as old as humanity itself. Consequently, throughout history, people have grappled with how best to appreciate otherness. In the most part, suspicion, aversion and conflict have marked religious differences. However, the awareness for improved appreciation of otherness is gradually emerging.

Even though the emergence of otherness in the academy dates back to the time of Aristotle, especially in his treatise on friendship, its wider engagement in humanities can be traced to about four decades ago,⁴ with literature prominently in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, et cetera.

In German philosophy, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–831) was the first to introduce the concept of the other,⁵ while Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) focused attention on moving alterity from the domain of ontology (Heidegger) to phenomenological discourses.⁶ It was through the partial influence of Husserl that the scholarship of Levinas radically situated alterity into ethics. The radicality of ethical values in Levinas knows no comparison among his contemporaries and beyond, in questioning the logical claims of ontology and totality.⁷ Levinasian ethical concern has ever since inspired great thoughts for otherness among some prominent twentieth-century French philosophers, like Jean Paul Satre, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricoeur.

In essence, the German philosopher Michael Theunissen (1932–2015) paved way for interests in Levinasian alterity. In his work Der Andere: Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart⁸ (The Other: Studies in the Contemporary Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Satre, and Buber), Theunissen distinguished himself as a primal critic of modern philosophers on the other. As a university colleague with Hans-Georg Gadamer, Theunissen engaged philosophical themes like phenomenology, ancient philosophy and social philosophy, which include the works of philosophical figures like Hegel and Heidegger. Overall, Samuel Moyn affirms that Theunissen’s work was famed before the interest in Levinas was really present, and so he stands as a predecessor to the appreciation of the Levinasian approach to alterity.⁹

In the words of Mitchell Miller, Otherness is a condition or quality of being different or ‘other,’ particularly if the differences in question are strange, bizarre, or exotic.¹⁰ Otherness, however, gains a clearer understanding, when studied in contrast to the notion of the self.